Austerity urbanism

![CDATA[Developed as a provisional formulation (and working concept) in the immediate aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008, austerity urbanism refers to the localized effects of the significant retrenchment and restructuring of public expenditures and services in the ensuing period, particularly in Europe and North America. Originating as a banking crisis, the Wall Street crash of 2008 was rapidly translated into a much wider crisis for the (social and welfare) state, for public-sector financing, and for (local) government service delivery, as the widely adopted policy of austerity involved expenditure cutbacks, often devolved to subnational or municipal tiers of government, along with a renewed emphasis on public-sector downsizing, privatization, outsourcing, and fee-for-service arrangements. In this way, both the costs and burdens of the crisis and its extended aftermath were “downloaded” to the local level, as indeed would be a disproportionate share of the political blame for the crisis, in the form of renewed accusations of municipal profligacy, political corruption, bureaucratic inefficiency, and abuses of labor union power.]]